Upcoming GM interviews show the Patriots are casting a wide net in their search

When Bill Belichick ran the New England Patriots, he truly did it all. While Belichick did have staff to support his overarching role as head coach and general manager, the longtime Patriots leader is credited with taking a chance on quarterback Tom Brady, bringing in Hall of Fame wide receiver Randy Moss, and scouting Rob Gronkowski despite a college knee issue that gave other teams pause.

Belichick made countless personnel decisions that ultimately facilitated a 20-year dynasty, but perceived missteps downplayed his wins in recent years. It's been impossible to replace Brady, yet Belichick's decision to draft Mac Jones has been widely criticized, as has his draft choices at wide receiver over the past decade. Without the veteran players that cemented the dynasty in its later years, the Patriots began to look like every other NFL team. The organization decided it was time to do things differently and parted ways with Belichick earlier this year.

While the team had a predetermined candidate to fill the head coaching role — there was a succession plan in place to install Jerod Mayo upon Belichick's departure — the team hasn't decided who will take over Belichick's general manager duties. Eliot Wolf has been serving as the team's de facto general manager and is considered the preferred candidate for the role, yet the Patriots are still taking interviews.

The MMQB's Albert Breer says Wolf is the "expected hire", explaining that New England is interviewing candidates because it has to "satisfy NFL rules on interviews." As the Patriots do that, it seems the team is casting a wide net by interviewing candidates from across the league of varying career backgrounds to fill the vacant position.

Patriots scout across the league for GM replacement

ESPN's Adam Schefter reports the Patriots are interviewing former Carolina Panthers executive Samir Suleiman as well as Philadelphia Eagles director of scouting Brandon Hunt for executive positions, possibly for the general manager role.

While the vagueness of Schefter's post leaves room to assume that these candidates are interviewing for the general manager position, that may not be the case.

CBS NFL insider Jonathan Jones cites a source that says Suleiman is interviewing to become the lead of football operations, which aligns with his previous experience.

Suleiman parted ways with the Carolina Panthers this January after interviewing for their own general manager vacancy, which was eventually awarded to Dan Morgan. Suleiman initially joined the Panthers in 2020 as the director of player negotiations and salary cap manager before being promoted to vice president of football administration in 2022. Before then, he was a front office executive with the Pittsburgh Steelers for eight years.

Suleiman's VP role granted him a larger role in Carolina's budgeting and finance department, which would serve as invaluable experience for a general manager candidate. But as Jones indicated, Suleiman may not be interviewing for the Patriots general manager position after all.

Hunt has been in NFL scouting circles for nearly two decades, starting with a stint as a pro scout for the Houston Texans from 2007-2009. He followed that with 12 seasons as the pro scouting coordinator with the Pittsburgh Steelers, joining the Eagles front office in 2022.

As several NFL and Patriots insiders have indicated, any general manager interviews the Patriots are conducting are likely a formality to satisfy league rules. As with most positions in the NFL, the team likely already has their candidate in mind but engages in the interview process anyway — it's something Mayo did himself just a few years ago before landing his current head coaching role.

“I went into all these interviews with minimal expectations, just going in there to put my best foot forward, which I think I did," Mayo said in a 2022 interview with FanSided. "And I think if you were to talk to any of these teams in the [AFC] East last year, they would say the same thing. Do they have an idea of who they like? Absolutely. That’s in any industry, it doesn’t matter. They come in with a guy that, they probably like this guy, and for you to overtake that guy, it has to be, like, he bombs and you do a fantastic job. But that being said, you know, there are a lot of learnings that I took from these interview processes.”